In a historic campaign, Google and Amazon employees have urged their respective companies to pull out of contracts with the Israeli government and its army, which they said contributed to the “systematic discrimination” and “displacement” of Palestinians.
In a Guardian column on Tuesday, more than 300 Amazon and nearly 100 Google employees said they felt “morally obligated” to speak out against contracts with Israel, known as Project Nimbus.
“The technology our companies have contracted to build will make the systematic discrimination and displacement carried out by the Israeli military and government even crueler and deadlier for Palestinians.”
Solidarity with the workers speaking out
https://t.co/sdbMiew68a
— PSC (@PSCupdates) October 13, 2021
The workers, who referred to themselves as “employees of conscience from diverse backgrounds”, described the contracts as “[selling] dangerous technology to the Israeli military and government”.
“This contract was signed the same week that the Israeli military attacked Palestinians in the Gaza Strip – killing nearly 250 people, including more than 60 children,” the workers wrote.
“The technology our companies have contracted to build will make the systematic discrimination and displacement carried out by the Israeli military and government even crueler and deadlier for Palestinians,” they added.
More important than the Sally Rooney story is the 400 employees of Google and Amazon that signed a letter demanding their employers stop Project Nimbus which entails them working with the IDF to build a new cloud service.
They wrote "we are anonymous because we fear retaliation"
— Lowkey (@Lowkey0nline) October 13, 2021
The cloud services will help Israel illegally collect data on Palestinians, the workers said, that will be used to further policies that US-based NGO Human Rights Watch says constitute crimes of apartheid.
A deal was signed between Google and Amazon with Israel in May to set up cloud-based regional data centers in Israel.
Israeli officials said the agreement will ensure continuity of service even if the tech giants come under pressure from rights campaigners to boycott the country.
The announcement came as Jewish employees of Google asked managed to review the contract and corporate donations with “institutions that support Israeli violations of Palestinian rights”.
(The New Arab, PC, Social Media)
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